


Knowledge

by draculard



Series: Nightthrawn 15 Day Ficlets [5]
Category: Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Nightswan Lives AU, Post-Battle of Batonn (Star Wars), Rebel Thrawn (sort of), Thrawn and Nightswan take down the Death Star, Unresolved Romantic Tension, hey guys this one is actually happy, well i mean it's not actively sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:40:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29480820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: Thrawn straightened up and glanced sideways at Nightswan, who realized suddenly how close his face was to Thrawn’s. “Intriguing. Do the other Rebels know you’re sharing this?” he asked.Nightswan’s mouth was dry. His eyes darted down to Thrawn’s lips. “No,” he said. “Does your ISB agent know you’re meeting me here?”
Relationships: Nevil Cygni | Nightswan/Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo
Series: Nightthrawn 15 Day Ficlets [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2158710
Comments: 5
Kudos: 10





	Knowledge

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by chaos_monkey's and MotherRameses's Nightthrawn fic [From Ice to Fire.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21654763/chapters/51638785)
> 
> Written for Day 5 Prompt, "Transform." Title taken from Yukio Mishima: “What transforms this world is — knowledge. Do you see what I mean? Nothing else can change anything in this world. Knowledge alone is capable of transforming the world, while at the same time leaving it exactly as it is. When you look at the world with knowledge, you realize that things are unchangeable and at the same time are constantly being transformed.”

It was a simple exchange of information, Nightswan told himself — nothing more. His defeat at Batonn had left him scarred, but hadn’t changed his goals, had only cemented his determination to unveil the Empire’s plans for a planet-killer and stop them in their tracks.

But something else had changed after Batonn. He shifted his feet, snow clumps falling directly into his boots and chilling his ankles. Thrawn had been promoted to Grand Admiral as a reward for his victory, giving him even more access to information — and more power — than he’d had before. And his first act as Grand Admiral had been to levy charges against Governor Pryce in the Empire’s joint military-political court of law. Now Pryce was in prison, and Nightswan found himself grappling with an entirely unfamiliar emotion:

Trust.

 ~~Or the seeds of it, at least~~.

He extricated one hand from his pocket and waved at Thrawn’s shuttle as it landed. Thrawn had agreed to meet Nightswan on his own turf once, before Batonn, and now he was doing so again. But whereas before Nightswan had eyed Thrawn’s motives with suspicion — certain that he was either planning foul play or deliberately manipulating Nightswan into trusting him — now he grappled with something more complex. Grudging appreciation, nervousness, a sense of unease. Beneath that, gratitude, admiration.

He didn’t like to think about those things. He pushed them down with a vengeance as Thrawn exited the shuttle, his uniform disguised by a gaberwool greatcoat. He returned Nightswan’s wave lazily before he approached, sliding his feet over the snowdrifts with expert grace. 

“You’re unarmed?” Nightswan asked by way of formality.

Thrawn smiled faintly and shook his head. He opened his coat to reveal the blaster holstered against his hip, then nodded toward Nightswan’s left boot, where his own holdout blaster was hidden. 

“Point taken,” Nightswan said. He tried not to return Thrawn’s smile and only just managed to banish all humor from his expression when Thrawn drew up next to him, barely a foot of space between them, the cold wind blowing Nightswan’s hair into his eyes and Thrawn’s back from his forehead. 

Thrawn seemed to sense the change in mood. Gravely, he said, “You wished to speak to me?”

Nightswan studied Thrawn’s face, searching desperately for the sincerity and lack of ego he’d seen before, trying to rationalize his urge to spill it all. He found what he was looking for, and more; he couldn’t explain why that realization simultaneously warmed him and set his stomach aflutter.

He bit his lip. 

“Not here,” he said.

* * *

The safehouse seemed almost blisteringly warm after their long walk through the snow. Nightswan stripped out of his coat and gloves immediately, his skin tingling from the sudden rush of heat. Across from him, Thrawn examined the den, unbuttoning his coat at a more leisurely pace, his ears and nose flushed from the cold. 

They gathered around the table without a word. Thrawn folded his gloves into his pocket and rubbed his hands together for warmth while Nightswan worked to get his cold-weather datapad up and running. A comfortable silence hung over them as he slid his datacard into place and ran the decryption program. Deliberately, he did this in plain view of Thrawn, not bothering to turn the datapad away or hide what he was doing. Thrawn’s eyes shifted over to him, studying him anew, but he said nothing.

He shifted closer to Nightswan, though, so that their arms were brushing. Nightswan was hyper-aware of Thrawn’s warmth at his side, of the deep pattern of his breathing made somewhat audible by their long exerting trek through the snow. Thrawn’s hair was in disarray, snowflakes still standing intact in it, as he leaned forward and looked at Nightswan’s datapad.

“Intriguing,” he murmured. He straightened up, glanced sideways at Nightswan, who realized suddenly how close his face was to Thrawn’s. “Do the other Rebels know you’re sharing this?”

Nightswan’s mouth was dry. His eyes darted down to Thrawn’s lips. “No,” he said. “Does your ISB agent know you’re meeting me here?”

Thrawn gave him a wry look. “I’ve worked rather hard to ensure the ISB doesn’t know you’re still alive,” he said. He pulled a datacard of his own out of his pocket and slotted it into Nightswan’s datapad. “I’ve assembled some records you might find interesting.”

Nightswan scanned the screen. Squads of officers and troopers, some of the galaxy’s best, suddenly given hushed-up orders and transported from their home bases. Movement profiles on both Orson Krennic and Wilhuff Tarkin. Contact information for an engineer named Galen Erso. 

He was so absorbed in the information that he scarcely noticed it when Thrawn’s fingers briefly brushed against his. It was a light touch, casual and accidental, and Nightswan’s subconscious accepted it immediately, without any warning bells. He turned to look at Thrawn, eyebrows raised, and passed him the Rebel datacard.

“Yours to keep,” he said.

Thrawn nodded at his own datacard, still slotted into the pad. “And yours as well,” he said. He rubbed the card absently between two fingers, eyes far away. He hadn’t moved away from Nightswan yet. He looked older, Nightswan thought. Thinner, harder. More weary, more disheveled than the last time he saw him.

“This doesn’t change anything, you know,” he heard himself say. He gestured between them, his knuckles coming dangerously close to Thrawn’s hip. “We’re still…”

A faint smile touched Thrawn’s lips, but his eyes didn’t come back from wherever they’d gone.

“Yes,” he murmured. “Still.”

But he didn’t move away yet, and neither did Nightswan. The cold outside had settled deep into his bones, making his scar tissue ache, and for now he couldn’t convince himself to leave Thrawn’s side — an unlikely source of warmth, he thought, but one he couldn’t afford to say no to. 

He stared at the datapad, at the information Thrawn had given him so freely.

Somehow, despite his words, he felt like things were changing nonetheless.


End file.
